More Snotty Behavior

OK, we were out to lunch with a friend today, and saw a male customer in the restaurant hawk a loogie onto the carpeted floor.   Complete lowlife douche. This does not happen in the USA!
However, in the USA, people go batshit crazy over a very difficult to catch virus, that has a near zero chance of becoming an epidemic.  Americans are gripped in a mass hysteria caused by irresponsible media, craven politicians, and a complete disregard for science.  
Because of this pissy pants panic, people returning from Africa are being quarantined and shunned.  It's irrational and plain wrong.  Way to go Home of the Brave!  There are hundreds of ways that an American is more likely to die, including lightning strikes and choking on a Chicken McNugget™.  
This massive panic attack is causing its own bad behavior.  Knock it off, America.  Get a grip!

Autumn is the Beginning of the Phlegm Season

The dog breath days of summer are finally gone, and Autumn is upon us.  It's the nicest time of the year here.  The oppressive humidity has vanished, leaving us with sunny days in the mid 80's, cooling to around 70 at night. (Since most of you are American, I'm keeping our archaic Fahrenheit temperatures.  You foreigners can go look it up.)  This occurred during the latter part of the National Day "holiday", the seven day long kind of holiday, beginning October 1, celebrating the anniversary of the Communist Party's rise to power.  Of course, two of those days are just days that are borrowed from weekends that have to be made up leading up to, and following the time off. Plus two of the days are also a Saturday and a Sunday, so they really only get three real holidays. But hey, it's seven days off in a row, so time for a billion people to have some fun!
Since more and more people are rising out of poverty and can afford to travel, they do so.  All the highways and railways become jam packed with people going to popular destinations, which become overcrowded masses of humanity, rendering those places nigh intolerable.  Smart people stay home.
People with more modest means wander around town looking at stuff.  If they are lucky, they may see a foreigner!  

One day, we joined a group of our friends at the big park outside of town to enjoy some beer and everyone's favorite chicken. This also enabled us to experience some "real China"--that is riding in an ancient bus, jam packed with holiday revelers, whose holiday has just been enhanced by having foreigners to gawp at.  There are two bus companies (I think) that serve the city.  One has most of the routes, and is constantly upgrading its fleet with new buses.  They are modern, well air conditioned vehicles with WiFi. The other company has two routes, and has a fleet of stumpy, rattletrap jalopies which may have seen service at the tail end of the Cultural Revolution.  They belch out enough black smoke to make one wonder if they run on coal. They have air conditioning in the sense that the air is changed to a different condition than it was previously in. The air vents exhale a vapor that has a strong essence of radiator coolant. The brakes screech and grab, causing the bus to shudder to a stop (at least it stops).  The clutch slips and the gears grind. Many of the hard plastic seats are cracked and held together with wire.  Sitting on those is to guarantee one a pinched bun cheek.  They have generous legroom is one is a double amputee, or if one remains standing.  These buses are not fast, which is not a problem on a holiday, since they spend the vast majority of time idling in traffic. They do that fairly well, with only an occasional spasmodic vibration that rattles the windows.   We eventually lurched to our destination and enjoyed an afternoon of eating, drinking and visiting.  The high point was the final massive tropical deluge of the season, which lasted much longer than usual, and resulted in the exodus of much of the crowd.

As I mentioned earlier, the weather has cooled and the air has become drier.  We can now spend most of the day with our apartment window open, which brings wonderful northern breezes in and has the added bonus of making us much more intimate with our neighbors.  Mostly it just enables us to hear a lot more.  Some things, we kind of wish we didn't have to hear.  
There are the usual morning noises, with Opera Man and Boss Communist dominating the morning sounds. But there is another, one of my favorite sounds, which comes from (mostly) men.  
One of the less appealing personal habits the Chinese have, one that annoys people in other countries who encounter Chinese tour groups, is the practice of loudly hawking and spitting anywhere they happen to get the urge.   Since smoking and eating deep fried street food are such a big part of many Chinese men's lives, and since many of my neighbors are elderly, much of their morning exercise consists of efforts to expel the byproducts of tobacco and gutter oil consumption.  It's a veritable symphony of savage coughing and expectoration. The Phlegm Concerto in D mucus.  Of course, cooler weather exacerbates this condition, and since the windows are open,  we'll be privy to all of the most intimate bronchial episodes our neighbors can provide.  Is this another example of "real China"?  No, it's snot.

Gutter Oil

Watch this video:

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Did you watch that?  If not, watch it.  Disgusting! Gross!  Blech!  
Gutter oil is one of the less delightful aspects of living here.  Gutter oil is very common.  It even has its own Wikipedia page!   However, it can be pretty much avoided by not eating in cheapo establishments, shunning street food and avoiding "great deals" on cooking oil.  Everyone knows about it, but people keep eating in cheap places, even though they are most likely aware that they are consuming pure nastiness.   I guess when you have the highest percentage of male smokers in the world, a little carcinogenic grease is just an extra bonus.
The reason it exists at all is because there are low life rat bastards that don't give a damn about anyone but themselves, and are willing to do pretty much anything to make a buck no matter who it harms. And they have people who need a job to do the dirty work.  ("I'll be able to build a new house in my village!")
It's pretty easy to decry China for such things as gutter oil.  What kind of culture is it, where such a practice is common?  Actually, most countries and cultures.  In the US, just this year, Freedom Industries in West Virginia had a massive chemical spill into the the Elk River, poisoning the water supplies for over 300,000 people.  This was due to the company using very old storage tanks next to the river, which failed.  Their lax storage practices saved them some money and they put people's health at risk.  They're making gutter oil.
When banks make predatory loans, they make money and people suffer---gutter oil.
When banks and Wall Street crash the world economy to make some bucks---gutter oil.
When politicians do the bidding to the same polluters, banks and Wall Street because they accept massive campaign money from these groups---gutter oil.
The human race is breeding, polluting, and consuming at a rate that is unsustainable.  The climate and environment are degrading at an alarming rate, and yet nothing is being done about it.  We are producing gutter oil on a global scale.

Of course, there is a solution to the gutter oil issue in China. Biofuels could be produced.  The oil collection system is already in place.  Will anyone try to make the change?  I doubt it.  Ditto on the world's "gutter oil" problems.  Humans are massive gutter oil producers.